Microsoft will start unbundling Teams from its Microsoft 365 and Office 365 productivity suites in EU markets since Slack (owned by Salesforce) in 2020 alleged that Microsoft had “illegally tied” its Microsoft Teams product to Office and is “force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers.”
Notably, Microsoft Teams surpassed Slack DAU in 2019 and has become the most popular business communication platform with 270 million users as of 2022, compared to Slack’s 18 million active users.
A research study was conducted in 2021 to compare engagement levels at the feature level between Slack and Teams:
Private messages: Slack – 89%, Teams – 60%
Group messages: Slack – 92%, Teams – 11%
Meeting attendance: Slack – 13%, Teams – 62%
Alongside the Teams unbundling, Microsoft is also planning to allow rivals like Zoom and Slack to integrate into Exchange, Outlook, and Teams.
But these rivals would also have to host Office web applications within their apps, just like how Microsoft does in Teams.
At the end of the day, when it comes to cost, Slack is 2x expensive than Teams.
Instead of Slack gaining Teams share, this unbundling would most probably allow Microsoft to expand its office suite to Slack users.
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